By and large, I love my cell phone. For the past six months, the T-Mobile Pocket PC Phone Edition (aka the Dork-o-matic 8000) has done everything I could want from it – fielding calls, intermeshing seamlessly with my over-stuffed contact database, calendar and to-do list, checking email, and even letting me modify complex film budgets on the fly in Excel, allowing me to determine the fiscal impact of changes to production plans while still on set.

Since coming to LA, however (ah, yes, did I mention I’m back in our nation’s smog capital, this time through mid-February?), I’ve been frequently seized by the urge to drop kick the thing against the nearest brick wall. Because, though the breadth of T-Mobile’s LA coverage is indeed impressive, the depth leaves a bit to be desired; so far as I can tell, though I get strong reception in all but the deepest concrete parking dungeons, I cannot actually place a call anywhere if any other user in greater LA County has even considered turning on their phone within the last twenty-four hour period. As a result, I spend quite a lot of my time listening to apologies by soothing automated voices – they’re sorry, but all circuits are perpetually busy.

Like any problem, however, my inability to initiate or receive calls, or even check messages, has a bit of a silver lining: this being LA, people assume I’m purposefully not answering their calls or returning their messages to demonstrate my greater relative power level. Yesterday, for example, David Hillary, the other producer on I Love Your Work, was ribbing me for being “harder to get on the phone than Ovitz at his prime.” And when I called to apologize to an agent earlier today who’s call I hadn’t returned for nearly a week, I found myself instead receiving profuse thanks for taking time from my obviously busy schedule to talk through the relatively minor matter at hand.

So, while I had initially planned on picking up a second cell for the duration of my LA stay, I suspect I’ll instead be sticking with my trusted T-Mobile. If I could work up the nerve to do it, I’d actually switch instead to an exceedingly elaborate and ineffective system of smoke signal and carrier pigeon, as I can only imagine the career gains I could realize by effecting such an approach. Once I work out the details, Harvey Weinstein is toast.